[rdf4j-dev] contributor to committer is now a lot easier

[Jeen Broekstra <jeen.broekstra@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi folks,

In the past, migrating from being a contributor to becoming a full committer for an Eclipse Foundation project involved a lot of paperwork: not only did you have to sign a form yourself, but the company you work for also had to sign a consent form. This was often problematic as any company's legal department typically is reluctant to sign such "waivers". Then there were a number of different documents and forms depending on what kind of company you worked for as well.

Perhaps you already knew this, but I recently found out that Eclipse Foundation have significantly simplified the process! No longer is it necessary for your company to sign anything - you, as an individual, can just sign an Individual Comitter Agreement (ICA), and that's it, paperwork-wise!

See http://www.eclipse.org/legal/committer_process/EclipseIndividualCommitterAgreementFinal.pdf for the ICA document, and see https://www.eclipse.org/projects/handbook/#paperwork for an overview of the simplified procedure.

Those of you who have previously held off on becoming a full committer due to the red tape: if you're still up for it, it's a lot simpler now.

Cheers,

Jeen

PS just to avoid confusion: an ICA is not the same document as an ECA (Eclipse Contributor Agreement) - the latter is what every contributor needs to digitally sign.